


Release

by westwoodandridingcrops



Series: Object(ified) [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Breathplay, M/M, be safe with your kinking children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 01:57:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4245180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwoodandridingcrops/pseuds/westwoodandridingcrops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>We take requests on <a href="http://westwood-and-ridingcrops.tumblr.com/ask">Tumblr.</a> We'll literally write anything. Give us a go.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Release

**Author's Note:**

> We take requests on [Tumblr.](http://westwood-and-ridingcrops.tumblr.com/ask) We'll literally write anything. Give us a go.

**Compression of the airway is not necessary for strangulation. A pressure of** **22 N/cm² would force the trachea closed, but far less pressure at around 3.4 N/cm², will occlude the carotid arteries.**

It is sufficient to use something slight, like a ribbon, slip-knotted about the neck, as the red ribbon is now wrapped around the column of Sherlock’s white throat. The vivid color was chosen for the contrast and is intentionally reminiscent of blood. It matches the ribbons that hold his wrists behind his back, such was Jim’s attention to detail. They are both knelt on their bed, facing each other, and Jim has only allowed the ribbon to slacken long enough to let Sherlock catch his breath with deep pants in an effort to satisfy the oxygen debt his body is collecting. He is sure that the normal pallor of his skin cannot conceal how flushed his skin must be, and his eyes flutter open and shut in an attempt to clear his slightly-blurred vision. Sherlock regains his breath and swallows through a dry throat before jerking his chin back, a signal that he is once again ready.  

**The carotid arteries, located on either side of the neck, supply the brain with oxygenated blood. When these arteries suffer compression, the brain is cut off from its oxygen supply and carbon dioxide levels increase.**

Jim shuffles closer and nudges Sherlock’s own knees further apart to make room for himself. He is at a slight height disadvantage this way, his legs folded underneath him while Jim kneels tall and takes the ends of the slip knot in one hand, tugging it tight again. Jim pulls to the side and it does not hurt, but it does constrict around his throat. Sherlock instinctively gasps once and then gasps again, more deeply, his body trying futilely to pull in oxygen.

“Easy, easy.” Jim says and he manages to sound soothing, but this is meant in irony: nothing about what they are doing should make one feel at ease. A feeling best described as ‘fuzziness’ begins to settle in Sherlock’s brain and though his rational brain does not panic, the animal that resides in the hindbrain does. His eyelids fly open and he looks over at Jim, chest heaving uselessly, giving him the signal. Jim quickly crowds over him, letting go of the ribbon and pulling the makeshift noose from his neck with a flick of the wrist. But before Sherlock can properly inhale, he is caught in a greedy kiss that leaves him breathing but unsatisfied, unable to placate his body’s desire to fill his lungs while he still can. The kiss almost lasts long enough to replicate the effect of the ribbon around his throat before he is freed from it, too. He cannot remain straight-backed as he normally is and he crouches forward as much as he can with his hands behind him and Jim before him and  _breathes._  The crown of his head is pressed up to Jim’s shoulder and his breaths come more raggedly, a touch more desperately this time. He swallows several times and it takes him somewhat longer to recover, but when he does he looks up at Jim.  _Go on,_ Sherlock says without saying.        

But rather than moving to take hold of the wide ribbon, Jim runs the pad of a thumb over both the fabric and flesh on Sherlock’s throat and pushes a shoulder gently back. Sherlock rearranges into a position that leaves him arched backwards, propped on his elbows, his legs trapped underneath him but splayed apart. He is to stay this way, Jim clarifies with a hand that moves down to rest on Sherlock’s abdomen. He has nothing in his sightline except the bed’s headboard and he is still breathing more deeply than normal as the shifting mattress announces that Jim is moving. He cannot know where Jim is moving to, but the question is resolved quickly when he feels the wet heat of Jim’s mouth around his cock. His muscles twitch in surprise as Jim runs his tongue in a long stripe from the base of his cock to his tip. His body submits to Jim’s clear intent and he grows hard as quickly as he possibly can. Jim is pushing his head forward into Sherlock’s pelvis and it has the effect of grinding his cock into Jim’s throat, making Sherlock gasp for an entirely different reason now. But rather than allowing him to finish, Jim removes himself and pulls lightly at the ribbon. That means ‘ _Come_ ,’ but rather not in the sense Sherlock might have hoped. Sherlock obeys the gesture though and pushes himself off the mattress with his still-bound wrists until he is once again kneeling.  

**After the peripheral capillary oxygen saturation drops below 80 to 60%, moderate hypoxia can produce dizziness, lightheadedness, euphoria, and heightened sensation.**

Having situated Sherlock to his specifications, Jim begins to pull at the ribbon tautly with one hand while pulling at Sherlock in strokes that are neither firm nor quick enough for Sherlock’s liking. In pulling at the ribbon, Jim had cut off the ‘tease’ that Sherlock was planning on calling him, and they both know the other knows this. Sometimes, sex is a rough game between them, full of insults and smirks and clever wordplay, but this is different; they have hardly spoken to each other at all this time. They have always had the ability to speak volumes between them in utter silence, of course: Jim’s genius is in the subject of people and Sherlock’s genius is in observation. But there is no knowing smirk on Jim’s lips this time, no infuriating remark.  He is almost stone-faced, merely watching what he does to Sherlock as though he were an interested but removed spectator. Sherlock can markedly feel his own pounding heartbeat, and he begins to feel faint more quickly than he had, Jim’s stroking causing his body to demand oxygen more than before. He feels the instinctual desire to pump his hips in response, but he cannot without losing his balance so he is forced to stay still, allowing Jim to do as he pleases. The feeling is alarming but he pointedly closes his eyes and tries to resist indicating that Jim should stop.

He knows the neurochemistry of sex and the neurochemistry of fear are similar, adrenaline courses for both, and he tries to hold out. He means to give himself time to catalogue and enjoy how the twin sensations add to each other but his chest spasms in protest, so he looks. Jim loosens the knot, failing to do so quite as quickly this time, but strokes faster now, keeping Sherlock’s erection from flagging. It doesn’t, it doesn’t even begin to. Instead, the sheer elation of oxygen flooding his brain again only threatens to drive him over the edge there and then. Sherlock knows there will be a mark, similar to but lighter than the deep ones he has carefully examined on garroted corpses, to be artfully concealed later under scarves and collars and he does not care. He has not fully composed himself, he is still panting when he nods once hurriedly at Jim.  _Come on, then._

**Strangulation can result in pinpoint hemorrhages, sometimes visible in dissection, and loss of consciousness. Death from anoxia can result from a continued lack of blood flow or oxygen. Else, pressure on the carotid artery nerve ganglion can provoke cardiac arrhythmia and result in cardiac arrest.**

Jim complies precipitously, the ribbon strains, and Sherlock is interrupted mid-inhalation. He does not widen his eyes when he looks at Jim, he does not want to communicate that he wishes this to be over. It is difficult to hold Jim’s gaze, as his sight hazes and his eyes shut tightly anyway against the feeling of his impending orgasm. Still, even with his vision compromised, he catches how serious Jim seems. It is a look of intent observation and therein is the root of their love affair.  For Sherlock tries to ignore the panicked signals of his body, demands to push past where he feels safe, and Jim aids and abets him always. But Sherlock hasn’t forgotten who Jim is and he cannot say positively that his look of curiosity is not, in fact, the look of a man who will continue pulling past when Sherlock can struggle.  He thinks Jim knows this and that Jim performs for him, sometimes not unfastening him instantly. He feels close, to unconsciousness and to climax, and it was Sherlock who first wholeheartedly consented but Jim who has the power of decision now.

He looks up at Jim and for a moment, Jim does not move to undo the knot but merely looks back at him. His reptilian brain is past terror at impending anoxia and his rational mind feels a sympathetic spike of horror at Jim’s inaction. But time has slowed for him, and Jim has swiftly torn the ribbon off of his throat. Sherlock overflows with the euphoric sensation of gulping down air and immediately, he thinks he feels every muscle he has convulse and then slacken as he finishes with Jim’s hand around him. He slumps forward gracelessly onto Jim. He is exhausted, he is winded, he is unsure of just when his hands are unbound and how he has come to be a pile of lax limbs laid on Jim’s chest. But he does know that Jim is stroking gently at his back, soothing him in earnest now.

He is a mad pursuant of things that could kill him, he always has been. He is mad to court such danger at the hands of a dangerous man, and he is mad to cuddle up to him afterwards. Regardless, he feels himself falling asleep now, with his brain in utter silence and with Jim.

**And yet, the rush of hypoxia has been compared to that of cocaine.**


End file.
